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U.S. Doctors Claim That Trump’s Controversial Hydroxychloroquine Drug Does Help 91% of Coronavirus Patients

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By Daily Mail. The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine has improved the survival and recovery odds for about 90 percent of patients treated with the controversial medication, a physicians group claims.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) presented data on 2,333 patients treated with hydroxychloroquine – including two supervised by Dr Oz – across the globe that shows 91.6 percent of those who got the drug fared better after treatment.

In a letter to Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, the group urged that doctors should not wait for results of gold standard tests of the drug to start using it in coronavirus patients and should instead base their use of it on reasonable interpretations of limited available data.

AAPS’s endorsement of the drug comes after a Veteran Affairs study of hydroxychloroquine found that those who took the drug were more likely to die, casting doubt over the potential treatment that President Trump has hailed a ‘game changer.’

The group of doctors dismissed those preliminary results, claiming that the 52 people who died were very sick, meaning their outcomes are ‘not indicative’ of hydroxychloroquine’s effects and that the drug would work better if used in patients with less critical illness. (Read more from “U.S. Doctors Claim That Trump’s Controversial Hydroxychloroquine Drug Does Help 91% of Coronavirus Patients” HERE)

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Michigan Doctor Charged With Fraud After Allegedly Touting Vitamin C Infusions as Coronavirus Treatment

By Fox News. A Michigan doctor has been charged with fraud after allegedly submitting false claims to Medicare for vitamin C infusions that he touted as coronavirus treatment and prevention, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Dr. Charles Mok, 56, is charged with health care fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud, according to a 47-page complaint.

The complaint says that Mok operated Allure Medical Spa primarily out of Shelby Township. Allure operates 26 outpatients in eight different states, with a least six clinics in Michigan.

According to the complaint, Mok defrauded Medicare before and during the coronavirus pandemic by submitting claims for injections that were either never rendered or unnecessary. (Read more from “Michigan Doctor Charged With Fraud After Allegedly Touting Vitamin C Infusions as Coronavirus Treatment” HERE)

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Media Doesn’t Care That People Died Because Cuomo Put Coronavirus Patients in Nursing Homes

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. . .That should have changed once it was clear that one of the hottest of the pandemic’s hotspots — New York’s nursing homes — were compelled by a state regulation to take in recovering coronavirus victims, many of whom were likely still contagious.

The implication of this rule — which was apparently strictly enforced and similar to the order issued by California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration — was that facilities filled with exactly the most vulnerable population had no choice but to admit carriers of the contagion. The results of this blunder were as brutal as they were predictable. As of last week, New York’s Health Department estimated the number of nursing home patients who had died of COVID-19 to be 3,500, a total representing more than 20 percent of all the state’s fatalities.

As reports of the suffering going on in nursing homes made clear, what happened was not a function of demography or chance. The March 25 order handed down by Cuomo’s Health Department mandating that nursing homes could not reject those recovering from the illness set in motion the events that inflated the state’s COVID-19 death tolls.

Far from realizing the mistake and seeking to correct it, Cuomo was still doubling down on the order at an April 26 press conference, at which he said again that nursing homes had no right to challenge the state order and reject patients who were likely to spread the illness. . .

Yet as the New York Post reported a day later, one coronavirus hotspot, the Cobble Hill Health Center in Brooklyn, where 55 people have died from COVID-19, had tried repeatedly to inform state Health Department officials of its lack of equipment and staff to handle the problem and received no help. Requests to transfer patients to the makeshift wards at New York’s mammoth Javits Center, a convention center that has been turned into a hospital, or the USS Comfort, the navy hospital ship that was anchored in New York Harbor before leaving due to lack of use, were turned down. (Read more from “Media Doesn’t Care That People Died Because Cuomo Put Coronavirus Patients in Nursing Homes” HERE)

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This State Was One Vote Away From Releasing an Infamous Serial Killer Into the Public Over COVID-19 Concerns

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In 5-4 decision last Thursday, the Washington State Supreme Court narrowly denied a petition that would have released thousands of inmates from state prisons — including some who committed serious violent crimes such as assault, rape, and murder.

One of those inmates would have been infamous serial killer Gary Ridgeway, a stunning report by PJ Media noted.

Ridgeway, also known as “the Green River Killer,” was sentenced to 500 years in prison in 2003 after being convicted of murdering 49 women, many of whom were prostitutes, in the 1980s and 1990s. He later confessed to murdering upward of 80 women. . .

Columbia Legal Services filed the petition last month which sought the release of all state inmates over the age of 50, with early release dates, or with risk of serious harm or death from COVID-19 due to underlying medical conditions. Ridgeway is 71 years old.

Nick Straley, an attorney for the legal group, argued that thousands of inmates should be released in order to preserve their safety and to allow for social distancing within prison facilities. (Read more from “This State Was One Vote Away From Releasing an Infamous Serial Killer Into the Public Over COVID-19 Concerns” HERE)

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UNBELIEVABLE: U.S. Doctors Have Started Giving Men With Coronavirus Estrogen After Finding the Virus Kills Half as Many Women

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By Daily Mail. Doctors are wondering if giving men two female sex hormones could make them more likely to survive the novel coronavirus. . .

This has led many researchers to wonder if the hormones mainly produced in women could be protective, reported The New York Times.

Two hospitals in the US are now putting that theory to the test, giving men estrogen or progesterone for a limited amount of time to see if it boosts their immune systems, decreases inflammation and reduces the severity of the illness.

Scientists say they don’t know why women seem less likely to die, but have suggested that women naturally tend to have stronger immune systems and are less likely to have long-term health conditions which make patients more vulnerable.

In China, researchers pointed the finger at men being more likely to smoke and drink, but this was a cultural factor which may be different in other countries. (Read more from “UNBELIEVABLE: U.S. Doctors Have Started Giving Men With Coronavirus Estrogen in the Hopes of Boosting Their Immune Systems After Finding the Virus Kills Half as Many Women” HERE)

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Doctors Have No Idea If It Will Work, But What the Heck. . .

By Nicoletta Lanese. The sex hormones estrogen and progesterone, which women produce in larger quantities than men, help to regulate the female immune system and may grant women special resistance against infections and harmful immune system responses, the Times reported. With that in mind, scientists at Cedars-Sinai and the Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University plan to treat small groups of COVID-19 patients with the hormones, to see if they make a difference.

“We may not understand exactly how estrogen works [to counteract COVID-19], but maybe we can see how the patient does,” Dr. Sharon Nachman, the principal investigator of the Stony Brook University trial, told the Times.

The Stony Brook trial will include 110 patients with confirmed or presumed cases of COVID-19 who develop at least one serious symptom, such as high fever, shortness of breath or pneumonia, but do not yet require mechanical breathing support through intubation, according to ClinicalTrials.gov. All men ages 18 and older may enter the trial, as well as women ages 55 and older (women’s estrogen levels tend to decline after menopause.) Half the participants will be treated with an estrogen patch placed on their skin for one week, while the other half will receive standard medical care. (Read more about the coronavirus estrogen plan HERE)

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Doctor Questions Death Toll: ‘Influenza Deaths … Have Been Called COVID-19’; Study: All-Cause Mortality Rate Is Lower Now Than in Recent Years

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By Fox News. Dr. Scott Jensen, a Minnesota family physician and Republican state senator, told “The Ingraham Angle” Tuesday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for doctors to certify whether a patient has died of coronavirus are a “mess” and predicted that some fatalities initially reported to be COVID-19-related would be reclassified.

“We both know,” Jensen told host Laura Ingraham, “that there have been influenza deaths, influenza cases, that have been called COVID-19 [deaths] because nobody bothered to swab their throats. If you want to find out what the data is, I don’t care if they’re dead or alive, swab them. We can always run a test later and then actually get real information.”

Earlier this month, Jensen told Ingraham that under the CDC guidelines, a patient who died after being hit by a bus and tested positive for coronavirus would be listed as having presumed to have died from the virus regardless of whatever damage was caused by the bus.

Jensen also gave a hypothetical example of a patient who died while suffering from influenza. If the patient was elderly and had symptoms like fever and cough a few days before passing away, the doctor explained, he would have listed “respiratory arrest” as the primary cause of death. (Read more from “Doctor Questions Death Toll: ‘Influenza Deaths … Have Been Called COVID-19′” HERE)

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Study: All-Cause Mortality Rate Is Lower Now Than in Recent Years

By The Blaze. According to the CDC, a large number of COVID-19 hospitalizations had at least one underlying condition. Yet, many doctors are recording deaths as coronavirus related without doing much to investigate the actual cause of death.

Consider this: When you visit your doctor you are always asked if you or a family member has been diagnosed with common health conditions. Each patient’s medical history provides your doctor with important information that directly affects the path taken for treatment.

By process of elimination, doctors can rule out common diseases and narrow down likely causes for illness.

Now, imagine being under the impression your mother or father died from COVID-19 when, in reality, it was hypertension or heart disease that caused the death of your loved one. (Read more from “Study: All-Cause Mortality Rate Is Lower Now Than in Recent Years” HERE)

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Wuhan Lab ‘Most Likely’ Coronavirus Source, U.S. Government Analysis Finds

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By Washington Times. A Wuhan laboratory is the “most likely” source of the COVID-19 outbreak now ravaging the globe, according to a U.S. government analysis that catalogs the evidence and concludes that other explanations for the origin of the coronavirus are less credible.

The document, compiled from open sources and not a finished product, says there is no smoking gun to blame the virus on either the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the Wuhan branch of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, both located in the city where the first outbreaks were reported.

But “there is circumstantial evidence to suggest such may be the case,” the paper says.

“All other possible places of the virus’s origin have been proven to be highly unlikely,” the document concludes. A copy of the report, compiled this month, was obtained by The Washington Times. (Read more from “Wuhan Lab ‘Most Likely’ Coronavirus Source, U.S. Government Analysis Finds” HERE)

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The Controversial Experiments and Wuhan Lab Suspected of Starting the Coronavirus Pandemic

By Newsweek. Just one day after the U.S. surpassed China to become the country with the highest number of Covid-19 cases, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency updated its assessment of the origin of the novel coronavirus to reflect that it may have been accidentally released from an infectious diseases lab, Newsweek has learned.

The report, dated March 27 and corroborated by two U.S. officials, reveals that U.S. intelligence revised its January assessment in which it “judged that the outbreak probably occurred naturally” to now include the possibility that the new coronavirus emerged “accidentally” due to “unsafe laboratory practices” in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the pathogen was first observed late last year. The classified report, titled “China: Origins of COVID-19 Outbreak Remain Unknown,” ruled out that the disease was genetically engineered or released intentionally as a biological weapon.

“We have no credible evidence to indicate SARS-CoV-2 was released intentionally or was created as a biological weapon,” the report found. “It is very unlikely that researchers or the Chinese government would intentionally release such a dangerous virus, especially within China, without possessing a known and effective vaccine.” Every scientist interviewed by Newsweek for this story also rejected categorically the notion that the virus was intentionally released. (Read more from “The Controversial Experiments and Wuhan Lab Suspected of Starting the Coronavirus Pandemic” HERE)

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China Lashes out at U.S. Over COVID-19, Threatens Australia

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By Fox News. China’s foreign ministry on Tuesday accused the United States of “lying through their teeth” and suggested the country mind its own business as the war of words between the world’s two biggest economic powers escalated.

“We advise American politicians to reflect on their own problems and try their best to control the [coronavirus] epidemic as soon as possible instead of continuing to play tricks to deflect blame,” spokesman Geng Shuang said.

The comments came on the heels of President Trump suggesting in a press conference on Monday that the U.S. would be seeking “substantial” compensation for China’s handling of the global pandemic. . .

Australia has also been on the receiving end of Beijing’s spiral. China’s ambassador to Australia warned on Monday that the government’s call for an independent international inquiry into the origins of the pandemic could lead to a Chinese boycott of Australian products.

“Maybe the ordinary people will say, ‘Why should we drink Australian wine? Eat Australian beef?'” Ambassador Chen Jingye threatened, The Australian Financial Review reported. (Read more from “China Lashes out at U.S. Over COVID-19, Threatens Australia” HERE)

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China Threatens Economic Consequences If Australia Launches Investigation of Beijing’s Handling of Coronavirus

By The Hill. Chinese officials are threatening economic consequences if Australia moves ahead with an investigation into Beijing’s early handling of the coronavirus outbreak, Australian Sky News reported on Monday.

Chinese Ambassador to Australia Cheng Jingye said Beijing could encourage Chinese citizens to boycott Australian exports and products if Australia was to initiate the probe, the news outlet reported.

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne called the Chinese threats “economic coercion” and repeated calls for an investigation into the early handling of the outbreak, which is thought to have originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan. (Read more from “China Threatens Economic Consequences If Australia Launches Investigation of Beijing’s Handling of Coronavirus” HERE)

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U.S. Intel: 45,500 Corpses Incinerated in Wuhan in 2 Weeks

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US intelligence officials believe that the true scale of China’s coronavirus outbreak is at least FIFTY times worse than the communist state is admitting to, and that 60,000 dead bodies per month could have been processed by the funeral homes in Wuhan.

Speaking with Fox News, a Trump administration official said that “PRC numbers as reported today seem to be arithmetically impossible.” . .

It is believed that US intelligence has in its possession satellite images showing funeral homes in Wuhan overwhelmed by dead bodies. Officials believe that incinerators have been in constant use for 24 hours a day since the outbreak began.

The intelligence sources have noted that in a two week period between March 23 and April 4, over 500 urns were delivered to Wuhan families every day, which equates roughly to one urn per minute.

US intelligence therefore calculates a conservative estimate of 45,500 corpses having been incinerated during this time. (Read more from “U.S. Intel: 45,500 Corpses Incinerated in Wuhan in 2 Weeks” HERE)

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Leftist Extremists Want Feds in Control of Private Property During Pandemic

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Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota has introduced a bill co-sponsored by the other members of the far-left freshman “squad” that would severely restrict personal property rights.

The Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act, introduced April 17, would cancel all rent and mortgage payments for the remainder of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The bill would constitute a full payment forgiveness, with no accumulation of debt for renters or homeowners and no negative impact on their credit rating or rental history,” according to a news release distributed by Omar’s office. . .

For one, it would force landlords to give up their right to annually adjust their rental rate to compensate for increases in property taxes, insurance or other variable costs. . .

It essentially seeks to shift ownership of rental properties from private hands to the government, forcing landlords to give tenants a 10% equity stake in their property. (Read more from “Leftist Extremists Want Feds in Control of Private Property During Pandemic” HERE)

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Antibody Tests Are Proving That Continuing Lockdown Is Senseless

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We are going to lose 40% of our national GDP this quarter, incur trillions in debt, lose our freedoms and privacy, and shed tens of millions of jobs – including of health care workers – due to the shutdown and panic porn peddled by the political class. But for what? For a virus that had already been spreading for months and has a case fatality rate well below 1%. We will be left with nothing from the lockdowns other than a virus that will be kept alive for longer and kill more people.

We no longer need to guess how pervasive the virus has been and therefore how low the fatality rate is. There are numerous serology tests being done throughout the country and the world that demonstrate the entire premise for the lockdown is counterproductive.

Miami-Dade County has now completed two rounds of random sampling for antibodies, and both surveys found a 0.18% fatality rate. The study sampled 32 municipal statistical areas in this county of 2.75 million people and found that between 4.4% and 7.9% of the population contained the antibodies. Extrapolating the survey results to the entire county’s population would mean that between 123,000 and 221,000 residents have already gotten the virus and that the fatality rate is therefore between 0.13% and 0.23%, for a median of 0.18%.

While many Florida counties are overwhelmingly populated by elderly residents, Miami-Dade is just a little above the national median age of the country, so it’s a good sample of the macro fatality rate when averaging out all age groups nationwide.

Most notably, the serology test found that “more than half had NO symptoms in the seven to fourteen days prior to screening.” That is a result similar to that of other countries, such as Iceland.

In other words, this thing was quietly spreading long before the lockdown, rendering the entire purpose of the lockdown moot.

Many other antibody studies have concluded there is a similarly low fatality rate. Antibody sampling in Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties netted similar results – between 0.12% and 0.20%. The fatality rate in Chelsea, Massachusetts, based on an extrapolation of a sampling there, would be around 0.16 percent. That is identical to the results of a recent antibody test in Denmark, which demonstrates a degree of consistency throughout the world. One serology test in Germany showed a slightly higher but still low fatality rate of 0.37%. And Germany has a higher percentage of seniors relative to its general population than the United States.

However, the more this virus runs its course and the more antibody testing takes place, it’s likely that the denominator of total cases will be much larger, further driving down the fatality rate. According to Reuters, a recent tally of 3,277 inmates in state prison systems in Arkansas, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia who had tested positive for the virus showed that 96 percent of them were asymptomatic. This is likely a relatively young population of predominantly males in their 20s and 30s.

If these surveys and tests showing wide asymptomatic spreading are representative of other places in the country and across the globe, it means that likely as many people have had SARS-CoV-2 as have the flu in a typical year. This has two important public policy implications: 1) The fatality rate is a fraction of what was suggested by the models that were used to justify the shutdown; and 2) This disease has spread so far and wide that implementing lockdowns and mass surveillance/contact tracing at this stage are like spitting into a sea.

Release the healthy; better protect the elderly and vulnerable

What is the punch line? If you are not elderly or chronically ill, you are less likely to die from coronavirus than most other things. Not only is the fatality rate of the virus overall only slightly higher than that of the flu, but it’s mainly targeting vulnerable populations. Over half the SARS-CoV-2 deaths in Massachusetts and Maine were in long-term care facilities, and the median age of death was 82. Nearly three-quarters of those in Minnesota were in long-term care facilities. That number is 75% in Rhode Island, 61% in Pennsylvania, and 43% in Connecticut.

New York and New Jersey appear to be the only states where the percentage is lower, but even in those hot spots, it was mainly those with chronic illnesses who died. A new paper published in the Journal of the American Medical Association by the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research found that 94% of fatalities in the New York City area had at least one chronic illness and 88% percent had at least two. The comprehensive study analyzed data from about 5,700 coronavirus patients admitted to New York City and metro-area hospitals between March 1 and April 4, of whom 553 passed away.

Now, certainly there are still a lot of people in the country with chronic illness who are at risk. They need to be protected. But the way to protect them is by younger and healthier people going out to burn out the virus. “Quarantining” younger and healthier people who are least at risk of serious illness or death will ensure the virus continues to make comebacks after the summer and kills even more people. Tragically, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, while pushing lockdowns on everyone, actually compromised local nursing homes by forcing them to accept coronavirus patients straight from the hospital.

Moreover, this lockdown is weakening the immune systems of even healthy people by keeping them so isolated. As Dr. Dan Erickson warned in his lecture that has now gone viral, there will actually be more illnesses over time as people go out because their immune systems have been artificially weakened.

“When we all come out of shelter-in-place with a lower immune system and start trading viruses and bacteria, what do you think is going to happen? Disease is going to spike,” warned Erickson, whose urgent care clinics tested over half of the positive cases in Kern County, California. “And then you’ve got disease spike among a hospital system with furloughed doctors and nurses. This is not the combination you want to set up for a healthy society.”

Obviously, if this virus had a high death rate among the broad population, then you wouldn’t want to build up your immune system while increasing the chance of catching the virus. But we now see in most places the death rate is likely well below 1% among younger people. We take greater risks with our health every day.

The bottom line is that early on, when we knew little about the virus and were all spooked by what seemed to be going on in Italy, some degree of a shutdown made sense. But now that the data is in, there is no justification for a lockdown – other than for those who want to secure a long-standing progressive agenda that predated this virus. (For more from the author of “Antibody Tests Are Proving That Continuing Lockdown Is Senseless” please click HERE)

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